You’re enjoying a day in the park and an ice cream van appears on the horizon. It’s blisteringly hot and although you want an ice cream or an ice lolly, you’re worried that it’s so hot it will have melted by the time you walk back.

Under normal circumstances, an ice cream or an ice lolly wouldn’t last two minutes in most of our hands – we’d devour it pretty sharpish – but again, what if you have to buy it for someone else and they’re late in arriving.

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So in the interests of science, we sought to answer those questions. And the most important one was – which melts first, an ice cream or a lolly.

Ice cream v cider lolly, which will melt first?

We bought a standard Mr Whippy ice cream, with added dash of strawberry sauce because why not, and then also ordered – at the exact same time – that staple of a summer in Castle Park, that national hot weather dish of Bristol, the cider lolly.

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The ice cream man, and everyone else who expressed a baffled opinion as we stood in the park not eating these delicacies, predicted the ice cream would melt first.

Ice cream v cider lolly - the ice cream starts to melt first

We set the point the contest would be over as the moment one of them would be inedible, and although the ice cream did indeed begin to melt within a minute or two, the bulk of it remained surprisingly intact.

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That took 20 minutes of hands getting steadily more sticky, but the conclusion was there for all to see – if you buy an ice cream or ice lolly and know it’ll be ten minutes before you can eat it – get a lolly. Anything more than that, and it’s best to get an ice cream.